


"you're not alone, matt"

by bittermelons



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: post-S3, sorry to b straight but i like karedevil when matt isn't an angsty shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittermelons/pseuds/bittermelons
Summary: a series of one-shots after season three, aka i want matt to go to therapy and heal with his friends and if charlie cox can ship matt and karen then so can i





	"you're not alone, matt"

i. 

A few days after they put Fisk in bars, Jessica and Matt go for a drink. Or more like Matt knows which bar she always ends up at and heads there to check in. Jessica’s still all barbed wire and stinging words, but Matt’s worried, knows that some parts of her are still tender and raw, especially after Trish. 

They don’t talk about that, though. They talk about everything else in the world he seemed to have missed since a building literally collapsed onto him — Misty and Colleen started training together, whatever was happening with Luke seemed shady, Claire was still out of town, but at least you put that bowling pin looking asshole where he belongs, Jessica says. 

No one has heard anything about Elektra, she says.. Matt doesn’t know which he’d rather feel, persistent hope or shattering grief. 

“You loved her, right?” Jessica asks. 

Dr. Alvarez, Matt’s therapist (his 3rd try, but the first to really cut through the bullshit) has been making him think about love, whether his love for some people has always been fair to them. Did he love Elektra for her or for what he made of her? Someone who shared the darkness that he had to hide with everyone else, someone who he thought he could save.   
Jessica watches him thinking. “i mean, i’m sure the sex was great,” she deadpans .  
Matt chuckles. “Yeah.”   
“Yeah like the sex was great?”  
“Well, yeah, but I mean yes, I did. I do.” 

“I mean if it’s any comfort, nowadays people have a way of returning from the dead to bite you in the ass,” Jessica says.   
Matt thinks of that night, the smoke and rubble and holding Elektra in his arms, and the memory twists sharply within him the more he holds onto it.   
“What about you?” he asks. She looks at him skeptically, knows he’s deflecting, but lets him continue. “I um…I’m sorry about what happened.”   
Jessica looks straight ahead and takes a swig of her drink.   
“You want my advice? You have people who are still here, who loved you through all the bullshit. Don’t ever let them go.”

ii. 

Matt wants to teach self-defense classes to children at the church, to Sister Maggie’s chagrin. “You think I want 10 mini-Daredevils running around the city and knocking people out, and then moping about it like you?”   
But when all the other nuns don’t condone teaching violence to their students, Sister Maggie alone understands. She remembers Jack, has watched Matt, and knows that boxing at its purest form isn’t about anger or even violence. It’s a dance, all your senses electric and attuned to the person in front of you. It’s the satisfaction of landing a blow that rings steady and true. It takes discipline to harness the fire inside you, to get knocked down and always get back up.  
She says yes after one evening, sitting with Matt in the parrish. “Jesse over there- he’s praying for God to give him a new leg. Henry’s asking to bring back his parents. I don’t know if I can be what they need, but- but I think it could help.”   
A few weeks later, Matt’s back at the office after teaching a class at Fogwell’s. He’s skimming over briefs, but the memory of Stephen using one of his crutches to sweep his opponent’s legs, or Henry crowing when he finally landed a finishing blow flashes in his head, and he can’t help but grin to himself.   
He feels Karen turn to him, feels the questioning raise of her eyebrows.   
“What?”   
“You’re happy,” Karen says. “Just haven’t seen that in a while.” 

iii.

Matt’s apologized to them so many times that it’s become muscle memory. “Sorry, I’m so sorry” when he mixes up Foggy’s bagel order, when he hands Karen the wrong files. They laugh it off at first- you go to therapy once and this is what happens?- but late one night, Matt’s apologizing profusely for not filling the water tank, and Karen cuts him off.   
“Matt, you can’t just keep saying sorry like it’ll erase everything that you did to us.” 

She sees his face start to fall. “No no, not like that. Look, we’re trying to forgive you. But you can’t just keep saying the words. Just- just do better.” 

“I think something to remember too,” Dr. Alvarez says later that week, “is that guilt is inherently self-centered. Guilt centers your fears, you failings. But doing better, being better asks you to look outside of yourself.” 

Matt thinks about Foggy, whose jokes could open any room, whose humor hid his hurt and worry and frustration. About Karen, whose voice was sunlight and honey until it was ragged with grief, hardened in steel anger. The people he loved, fighting through their own darkness and light, battles he never saw because he was so focused on his own. 

So when Nelson, Murdock & Page start seeing new clients, Matt throws himself in with a new frenzy. By day he takes on pro-bono cases for elderly tenants facing eviction, compiles legal resources for the new detention and deportation cases in the city. And if by night a bruised landlord has a sudden change of heart, or if the ICE headquarters’ computers are all smashed in by blunt objects, well, who’s to say. 

Matt tells Karen and Foggy when he does all these things as Daredevil — “How is it even possible for you to crack a rib every week and still be alive?” — but now that he’s saying out loud for them, he reels it in. (Matt can think of someone in particular who he’d like to dangle off the top of trump tower, for example, but he’s trying to have some tact)

iv. 

With Foggy on leave to prep for the wedding of the century, Matt and Karen head to the church to talk to a client referred by one of the nuns, laughing and remembering along the way. 

“In Protestant Church, I had to memorize less shit, but you get the beads! I wanted the beads so badly as a little girl.” 

“I get the beads, but also the Catholic guilt that weighs upon every aspect of my life.” 

“OK fair, but when you were a kid did you get to drink real wine instead of grape juice?” 

They pause their quasi-reenactment of the 16th century Catholic-Protestant schism once they step foot inside, but after the meeting, Karen’s still thinking. 

“Here’s what I still don’t get about either of our churches,” Karen says. “We’re both so obsessed with saving people, but you can’t. People will always do whatever they want.” 

Matt doesn’t say anything. But as they walk the few blocks back, he places a tentative hand on her elbow. In the cool and quiet evening, no one’s really there for them to pretend, yet they fall into unison easily. After a block, Karen wordlessly slides his hand into hers, intertwines their fingers. He traces his thumb on her hand, feels her pulse quicken, the slight rush of blood to her hands and her cheeks. She knows he knows but looks determinedly ahead, letting go right before they reach the office. 

Across the table they share, Matt listens to the shift of her silken hair on her shoulders whenever she turns to him to speak, the beat of her heart tapping out, not yet, not yet. 

Maybe you can’t save people, he thinks, but you can help them find their way.


End file.
